


Untitled Yuletide Fic

by runicmagitek



Category: AO3, Dreamwidth - Fandom, Untitled Goose Game (Video Game)
Genre: Breaking the Fourth Wall, Crack Crossover, Gen, Humor, Internet, Literal Fanfic Problems, Satire, Video Game Mechanics, Yuletide Treat, Yuletide was not actually harmed during the making of this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 01:40:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21949204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runicmagitek/pseuds/runicmagitek
Summary: It's yet another lovely year for the Yuletide Exchange, and there's a horrible goose wandering the internet.Or: How the Goose Stole Yuletide.
Comments: 38
Kudos: 120
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Untitled Yuletide Fic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hangingfire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hangingfire/gifts).



It was yet another lovely day in town. The sun shined, the gentle breeze paired with the mild temperature, and the resident goose stole yet another bell. Despite the villagers’ attempts to thwart the goose’s efforts, said goose eluded each one with surprising ease, never once dropping the bell in its beak. And like every bell-hijack, which felt like a daily occurrence by now, the goose broke into a sprint—yes, picture a goose sprinting; it’s as majestic as you make it out to be—upon clearing the lake to arrive home.

A myriad of odds and ends scattered the depths of the woods, all stolen from the locals. Various portraits of the goose painted and scribbled on cardboard and wooden panels lined the path, though the goose didn’t care much for the massive, red line through each one, but art was the eye of the beholder or something like that. Who was the goose to say? _It was a goose._ But the goose _was_ fond of the dozens upon dozens of eyeglasses stacking on a rock and the endless socks, none of which were matching, which honestly explained a lot about the universe and laundry machines right then. Makeshift picnics splayed out before not one, but _two_ ceramic goose significant others. A third one had appeared in the messy neighbor’s yard, yet the goose wasn’t particularly excited about making _that_ roundtrip again.

All of it paled before the ravine at the end. The goose slowed down and the bell’s jingling quieted. Waddling to the edge, the goose peered below. How many bells were in there? More than anything else amongst the collected bobbles, that was for certain. Another to add to the collection. Come tomorrow, the locals would adorn _another_ bell to their miniature village. Why? That was a great question, but considering the saying about doing something over and over and expecting different results, it made sense.

Except the goose wasn’t aware of such a saying or _any_ saying, because why pay attention to anything you can’t steal or honk at?

Thus the goose dropped the bell to add it to the extensive collection. It made a distinct clatter of a chime while tumbling down the mountain of bells. The goose wiggled its tail, more than content with this progress.

_Honk!_

Now that _that_ was over with, the goose had a _very_ important date with two geese.

Then something strange happened.

The vibrations of the bell never quieted—it grew. The thrum flowed through the land, nearly deafening the goose. Stopping in its tracks, the goose spun around and stared.

_Honk?_

The bells floated upwards and shook something terrible. Whatever vibrations they emitted played in reverse and stuttered. Every bell clustered together, as if an invisible magnet compelled them to do so. A little, black speck emerged in the center. Gradually it grew, swallowing the bells and leaving a gaping black hole ripped through reality.

If the goose had eyebrows, it would have furrowed them. Maybe even balled its wing into a fist to shake at that dastardly black hole, because how _dare_ that random thing waltz in and steal the goose’s things! One would need to be quite the inconsiderate disaster of a jerk to pull off a stunt like that.

But the goose doesn’t have eyebrows and wings don’t work that way, so the goose did what geese do best—it flapped its wings to assert dominance and charged forward.

_Honk!_

Yeah, that’ll show that black hole who’s boss.

But the black hole didn’t yield. Neither did the goose. And with every bell now swallowed up by said black hole, the goose had no other choice.

The goose ran into it and disappeared from that quaint village.

First it was sunny, then there was darkness, and finally a blinding white. The goose slowed to a halt and looked around.

_Honk._

Maybe this was snow, but the ground wasn’t wet or crunchy. Actually, there wasn’t much of a ground, either.

_Honk honk._

Even the goose’s cries didn’t echo in this space. But none of that was as disconcerting as the fact that the goose’s body had no outline and bled with the background, leaving orange feet and beak along with beady eyes floating in nothingness.

Seriously, what did a goose have to steal to make itself visually accessible?

Regardless of how silly it looked, the goose waddled onward with the intent to retrieve its missing bells and return home. Maybe. Where did that black hole even go to, anyways?

The first sign of something that wasn’t white was an odd gathering of grey pixels assembling the shape of the dinosaur lawn ornaments the messy neighbor had on display, which were now all in possession of the goose in its abode. The goose lowered its head and inched closer.

_Honk?_

The little dino-shaped thing did nothing

The goose came closer and tried again.

_Honk honk honk honk?!_

Nothing.

But when in doubt, the goose did what a goose does best—wreak havoc.

The goose plucked the dino-thing and whatever letters surrounded it and dropped them elsewhere. Much to the goose’s surprise, each object fell through the floor and into a white abyss, which didn’t make a whole lot of sense, considering the goose was still standing on that invisible floor. Then again, all logic was thrown out the window the second the goose’s bell collection summoned a portal to whatever _this_ strange place was.

And if matters weren’t strange enough, a new image appeared in the corner. The goose couldn’t reach it—why did none of the goose’s mechanics involved flying will remain a mystery—and instead witnessed it gain additional, curved bars until it was full. The goose tilted its head at this anomaly.

_Honk?_

The white space vanished. Color and images and text flooded into view. Granted, not _all_ of the white disappeared, but it was nice to have some contrast. Topping off this new landscape with a stylized sign that the goose couldn’t read, but clearly said: _Dreamwidth._

The goose blurted out a series of honks as it ran around in circles. This wasn’t like the village it tormented—I mean, visited; this was different. And _odd_. And not a blasted bell was in sight.

The familiar scroll of lined paper dipped into view along with the sound of rapid scribbles. A list, just like the ones that guided the goose on each, chaotic journey. The goose stared.

  * Become a Yuletide mod
  * Mix up the tag set
  * Post a mod announcement
  * Bloat a fandom’s fanfic numbers
  * Swap assignments
  * Create a Yuletide fic



Oh. _Oh._

Never mind the bells—this was a good day to be a horrible goose.

First off, it was a bit of a double standard that the goose couldn’t read the website, but had full comprehension of what the sacred to-do list instructed the goose to do. Considering that, the goose would no doubt fit in well in this new territory. Second off, what the hell was a Yuletide and how did one become a mod?

Luckily for the goose, that search was a quick one. Also quite literal. Because there was _literally_ a search function in a corner that made this possible. Too bad the little town the goose was from didn’t have this; it would have made it _a lot_ easier figuring out what on earth those two pub patrons wanted the goose to do before the goose received a flower.

Pecking at the search button, the scenery shifted and brought a new section. Even more words, but the ones that mattered were yuletide_admin. Instead of reading over what the heck this Yuletide thing was about, let alone the rules implemented to make it possible, the goose searched for something relevant to the mods. Nestled towards the bottom was just that.

_Honk._

The goose tried to squeeze between two of the moderator names. That’s how one became a mod, right?

Nothing happened on the to-do list.

Hmm… becoming a mod was going to take more effort than that.

The goose returned to the top and discovered a join button. Was this how one became a mod? The goose pecked it. Several seconds passed, then the button reverted from “request sent” to “join community”. Huh. That was odd. The goose pecked it again. And again and again with the hopes that maybe something would happen, but no luck.

_Honk_ _…._

Maybe another button would help the goose’s endeavor. After poking a few with its beak, the scenery changed again, this time trading stark reds for light blues. There was still white, though. At least it was easier to see the goose with the constant text. Front and center was a new post on yuletide_admin from one of the mods:

> It has been brought to our attention that there are numerous requests to join the community. If you wish to follow for updates, please subscribe to yuletide_admin. Otherwise, all requests to join will be denied.
> 
> Also another reminder that nominations will open next week. We will start an evidence post shortly for fandoms that may qualify for nominations. Keep in mind that—

Well, that was interesting, but the goose didn’t have time to read all of _that_ … which again, begged the question as to whether the goose really _could_ read or was just yanking our chains all along. But here we are. Anyhow.

So the goose waddled back to the previous page. Instead of pecking the “join community” button again, the goose waddled to the bottom, figured out the subscriber block o’ text could collapsed, and dragged it all the way up to the moderator section to drop almost a thousand users into it.

Meanwhile on the main page, a new mod post surfaced. Details of an error in the system assured users that no, they were not randomly selected to become a mod, because there was nothing random about _everyone_ suddenly becoming a mod at the same time.

The comments section in said post, however, took on a life of its own:

> **atrophycavity:** Thanks as always for the hard work, mods!
> 
> **veganddition:** Oh no, that’s horrible. Hope it goes smoothly.
> 
> **ohsodewey:** Wait, does that mean we can make posts to yuletide_admin too????
> 
> **theworriedgamer:** Incoming memes and shitposts in 3… 2… 1…
> 
> **tears_like_rain:** MODS ARE ASLEEP BE HORNY ON MAIN

Also meanwhile, the goose figured out how to make an account, created a spiffy icon resembling one of the many portraits the townsfolk made, spammed whoever had the account goose with enough honks to discover the word limit in comments, and proceeded to drag goose_mod down into the mass of text that was now the mod team at yuletide_admin.

The sound of a pencil striking paper came into earshot and the to-do list dropped down.

  * ~~Become a Yuletide mod~~
  * Mix up the tag set
  * Post a mod announcement
  * Bloat a fandom’s fanfic numbers
  * Swap assignments
  * Create a Yuletide fic



Aw yeah. Now we’re talking.

With the fiasco of the mod influx, the goose wandered back to the main page undetected. Perfect. Next order of business was figuring out any of the following assignments on the to-do list. The goose was superb at mixing _anything_ up, but where exactly this tag set was eluded the goose. Same with swapping things. While a plethora of links tempted the goose, it decided on an easier task.

The previous mod posts were lengthy, yet intricate articles, particularly useful to those new to Yuletide. Plenty of links directed curious and confused folk in the right direction. Thorough instructions were neatly tucked behind appropriate read-more cuts.

And then there was the goose’s post, which was nothing but two pages of _HONK_.

The to-do list popped into view.

  * ~~Become a Yuletide mod~~
  * Mix up the tag set
  * ~~Post a mod announcement~~
  * Bloat a fandom’s fanfic numbers
  * Swap assignments
  * Create a Yuletide fic



Quick and simple. The best kind of tasks. The goose wiggled its tail with yet another notch to add to its non-existent belt. Funny enough, what was better than successfully completing a task was the influx of comments on said mod post.

> **eponatrifoce:** Honk????
> 
> **trinity:** What does this mean?!?!
> 
> **bacon_scruff:** It’s official—mods are drunk.
> 
> **anythingbut:** goose_mod is best mod
> 
> **savannahh20:** I for one accept our new goose overlord
> 
> **arcadiaskies:** omg the mods have been turned into a goose it all makes sense now
> 
> **lordsephiroth:** This reminds me of the time my cat walked across my keyboard before I posted my Good Omens PWP fic. Yeah.
> 
> **cockalorum:** Does this mean Yuletide’s canceled?
> 
> **sugarheartpanic:** Yuletide? MORE LIKE HONKTIDE.
> 
> **tnystrk:** YULEHONK

Well then. That was a lovely development. If only the townsfolk were this enthusiastic about the goose and its antics! The goose flapped its wings in response.

_Honk honk honk honk!_

For every comment, there was at least one (1) honk for a reply. Sometimes tackling the to-do list gave the goose pride, a sense of purpose. All the other times, it just reveled in being the chaotic entity it was. This? This was totally one of those times.

But by the fortieth reply honk, an error popped up. The goose staggered backwards and cocked its head.

_Honk!?_

I know, right? Rude!

Navigating back to the main page, the goose discovered its mod post was nowhere to be seen. A new post sat on top, written by an actual mod:

> We are still smoothing out the kinks with the recent blip regarding the mod issue. Please refrain from making—

The goose grabbed the entire post and tugged it free from the layout. Quite a clunky thing, but the goose had wrestled with more awkward objects. Once it scuttled to the side of the page, the goose turned around, nudged the post to the edge, and dropped it. The entire mod post fell through that white abyss, shrinking until it no longer existed. The goose looked over that edge.

_Honk!_

Yes, good riddance, indeed.

Returning to the main page, the goose considered the string of links to the side. The goose was aware of how to make a post and beyond familiar with replying to comments… but what of the other ones? Something about a collection? Ooo, maybe it was like the collection of bobbles the goose amassed over the years. Now _this_ the goose had to witness!

The goose waddled to the link, pecked the cluster of words, and immediately teleported to a different area.

This one was also red and white, mostly the latter—and honestly, whoever created these spaces was _very_ inconsiderate about the concept of a goose visiting; how was anyone to noticed there was a goose when _the entire background was white?_ —but the goose made due. Orange feet shuffled about while seemingly floating eyes scanned the premise.

_Honk?_

The goose pecked one of the dropdown menus. The entire thing expanded to a massive size. The goose flapped its wings and honked, startled by this development. And within that were _more_ expandable menus. It was quite extraordinary—the goose had never seen so many objects neatly organized alphabetically by canon, then by media. It was perfect.

Perfect to mess around in, that is.

The goose plucked out various names within each fandom and dropped them into unrelated categories. Anime jumped into movies. Books shuffled into cartoons and comics. By the time the goose was finished, nothing would be where it belonged.

That time, however, didn’t come as soon as the goose hoped. Something hovered in front of the goose and yanked away the Gideon the Ninth fandom before it was lost in video games forever. What looked like one of the gardener’s spades carried the category away and back to the books. The goose stared incredulously at that dastardly spade.

_Honk honk honk!_

Bolting after it, the goose skidded to a halt and snatched Gideon the Ninth back into its clutches. The little spade shook furiously before sweeping in to steal it from the goose. Back and forth they went, until the goose resorted to an old and tried tactic; it crept up from behind, waiting for the floating spade thing to drop Gideon the Ninth into the books category. Before it could—

_Honk!_

The spade trembled and Gideon the Ninth tumbled elsewhere. The goose ran in, scooped it up with its beak, and made out like a bandit to the video games category. Yeesh, why did video games have to be all the way down there? Furthermore, why didn’t the goose collapse all the categories to make this a shorter run? Weaving in and out of the plethora of movie fandoms, the goose evaded the persistent spade pursuing it. And eventually— _finally_ —the goose dropped the renowned book fandom into the depths of the video games, lost somewhere between Dark Souls and Dragon Age.

Upon completion, the goose collapsed the categories and looked to the spade, which still hovered over it. All it needed was a pair of googly eyes and angry eyebrows to complete whatever look it was giving the goose. In reply, the goose wiggled in place.

_Honk!_

While the tag set oh-so-slowly rearranged by the poor cursor—yes, the joke is over now; it was a mouse cursor the whole time—the goose looked above. The to-do list scrolled into view:

  * ~~Become a Yuletide mod~~
  * ~~Mix up the tag set~~
  * ~~Post a mod announcement~~
  * Bloat a fandom’s fanfic numbers
  * Swap assignments
  * Create a Yuletide fic



Huh, the goose had missed the pencil scratching out the recent task. That’s what happened when you were a goose and having too much fun. Welp, three down and two to go. That is, if this funny world worked like the village. At the rate the goose was going, it was par for the course.

Looking over the remaining tasks, the goose contemplated what to do next. Not that this process was involved—it was always keen on chaos—but it was a matter _what_ to mess up first. The goose spun around in place.

_Honk?_

It waddled to the top, which was less of a walk since the cursor had collapsed everything back to the way it was. The goose regarded the words along a red line, thankful it wasn’t color blind or else this whole story would be a mess. Curious about what this was all about, the goose pecked one.

A dropdown menu unfurled. Oh _ho_. What have we here? _More_ fandoms? That aren’t already in the tag set?

It was probably for the best that geese can’t tent their wings together while devising an evil scheme, which harks back to the notion that geese don’t have eyebrows— _or do they_ —and thus would make for a horrifying image. Instead, the goose was honestly just a beak, a pair of legs, and floating eyes. If only the goose could dispose of this white background. Silly developers didn’t know accessibility if it hit them in the face….

The goose proceeded into the fandoms and had more fun there than it did stealing that wimp’s glasses, then his toy airplane, placing it in the shop, giving _back_ the glasses, and then watching the kid have to pay for his toy. For the eightieth time. The best part was there was no shopkeeper shooing the goose along, or in this case, no cursors poking the goose away. Maybe that should have been the first red flag. On second thought, maybe the goose _was_ color blind.

Once the goose considered its job done, it waddled back, revisiting pages it had previously been to until it returned to that silly yuletide_admin page. And goodness gracious, was that a sight to see.

A new mod post titled “ATTENTION - URGENT: ALL MUST READ” nestled on the top:

> Guys. Come on now. We _all_ are aware AO3 can be a little wonky, especially with the whole server thing going on, but please, for the love of whoever you worship, _please put nominations in the right tag._ I don’t know how to make this clearer. It’s legit the most basic concept out of everything that’s necessary. You pick a thing you like. You pick characters from that thing. Boom. Done. But apparently we set the expectations too damn high. We got 12th century RPF in Battlestar Galactica, Legally Blonde in the Grisha Trilogy, The Witcher (video game) in The Penumbra Podcast, and _way too many more_. Come on now. We’d excuse it if it was one person doing all of this, but this is literally every single nomination. We do not have the time or energy or manpower or sanity to comb through this and figure it out ourselves. Please. Sweet baby jeebus _puh-lease_. Sort your tags out. We can’t have Yuletide with this mess.

Now curious, the goose popped into the comments to further see the wake of the chaos.

> **cutlery:** Uh, question: so I nominated Pyre (video game) and it’s showing up in TV shows for some reason? Like that’s out of my control. Is this something the mods can fix or is that on AO3’s end?
> 
> **nba_jam:** Man, now I want a Pyre TV show.
> 
> **vyrnwy:** Also came here to say the same thing about nominations not showing in the proper category. And here I thought I was having a stroke.
> 
> **nyahnyahnyah:** I think AO3 is having a stroke.
> 
> **baking_hazard:** Ugh, I hope those new servers for AO3 are worth it. I feel like a potato could run things smoother right now.
> 
> **teh_rusty** : I need a fic now about tag wranglers chasing after potatoes.

As much as the goose wanted to reply to every comment with its favorite saying, there was a more efficient way to go about this. Thus the goose returned to the top, pecked the post button, selected yuletide_admin from the—

What? It wasn’t _there_!?

_Honk honk honk!_

The goose retraced its steps until it returned to the first page it came across. Not the one with the dino-thing, but the first legit thing—the Yuletide profile page. Running to the bottom, the goose almost fell over from what it found.

_Honk?!_

The moderator section was no longer flooded with users! How dare they! Well, that was at least easy to remedy. The goose ran back to the top, dragged its goose_mod username to the bottom, and dropped it in the—

A cursor grabbed the username and chucked it aside.

_Honk honk honk honk honk honk honk!_

The goose ran around this cursor—there was more than one?!—and gave it a death stare… which looks exactly like a normal goose stare. And honestly, it’s difficult to be intimidated by a goose that blends with a white background. But that didn’t deter the goose. It snatched its username back into its beak, insistent that its name would go into the moderator section. The cursor gave a good fight, better than anything the goose experienced in the whole village.

Eventually, the cursor floated just out of reach, returning goose_mod to the top where it belonged. Which was exactly enough time for the goose to grab all the collapsed users again and dump them into the moderator’s section.

There. _That_ should keep the cursor occupied for a while.

The goose retrieved its username and snuck it into the mess of usernames before returning to the main page. It stomped its little feet with glee upon seeing a new mod post—this one was the evidence posts.

And there were already over twenty pages of comments.

The goose entered, waddling slowly as it scanned the premise.

> **danvers:** What do you mean I can’t nominate Runaways (comics)? I’ve been able to in previous years. I just checked the total fics in both AO3 and FFN the other day. It’s well under 1k.
> 
> **gamr_grrl:** Yeah, I’m not going to dig up my massive wall of explaining stuff from last year that got Assassin’s Creed Odyssey in, but I also checked before nominating and it hadn’t hit 1k total fics yet.
> 
> **nothing_but_wind:** Come on, guys. Really? I can’t nominate Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse? Like I get it’s Marvel, but it is its own thing? What else do I need to show as “evidence” for mods? Oh, except wait, we’re all mods again, so I guess we’re just the wild wild west of fics at this point.
> 
> **sugarheartpanic:** WAIT WE’RE ALL MODS AGAIN
> 
> **theworriedgamer:** For Yuletide, I approve all fandoms. Yes fandoms. Such fics. Wow.
> 
> **4ever_frozen:** omg did no one even look into this aside from the total number of fics? ALL of the fandoms have this problem. they ALL have additional fics pushing past a thousand. And all of them just have _honk honk honk_ for pages and pages. Seriously ya’ll do some research.

The to-do list popped into view and the pencil scribble followed:

  * ~~Become a Yuletide mod~~
  * ~~Mix up the tag set~~
  * ~~Post a mod announcement~~
  * ~~Bloat a fandom~~ ~~’s fanfic numbers~~
  * Swap assignments
  * Create a Yuletide fic



That was strange, though; the list took a while to register that one, considering the goose had done it a while ago. Eh, must be the lag in AO3’s servers. Figures.

But the tag set and nominations were smoothed out. Even AO3 made a news post about spam stories containing nothing but _honk_ in them. This wasn’t boding well for the goose. That just made creating a Yuletide fic ten times harder in the current situation. If only it had thought to do that assignment before bloating things… or like, a plot device that easily sways the odds in the goose’s favors.

Oh right, the goose made itself a mod. Maybe that would come in handy.

The goose returned to this sacred AO3 and to the Yuletide collection, where it was proud to discover goose_mod was on the list as one of the maintainers. Because clearly if one’s name is marked as a moderator in Dreamwidth, it easily translates to maintaining a thing in AO3. Simple and straightforward. Honestly, all logic was thrown out the window the second a cluster of bells created a portal to the Internet. If you came here for _realistic_ goose silliness, you’re kind of in too deep at this point to go back and not question your life choices.

Anyhow.

The goose was now a maintainer, which was not a good sign for anyone except the goose. But no one had thought to check the AO3 side of things, because if goose_mod translated over, then by that logic _freaking everyone_ _’s_ username was on there until the actual mods sorted this nonsense out. Ah yes, what a pickle Yuletide was in—the peak time for a goose to have some fun.

Nestled between sign-up summaries and the profile page, the goose found the interconnecting web that was the assignments. It dropped its beak in awe. This was like if the messy neighbor had a hundred socks on her clothesline instead of two. This was _amazing_.

The goose checked both ways before waddling onward; no sense in being careless now when a cursor could swoop in and ruin all the fun. Once the coast was clear, the goose ducked in and plucked the first assignment it could grab and dropped it into another, replacing what was there into the first one.

The satisfying scratch of the pencil came into earshot, but the goose never lifted its head to check the to-do list. Oh no, there was _far_ more to do.

Once the goose deemed itself done, it mixed and matched over half of the assignments in the exchange, just in time to evade the furious cursors swooping in to supposedly save the day. Yeesh, no fun, that bunch. Waddling out of range, the goose jumped from AO3 back to Dreamwidth and marveled at yet another new post. Oodles of comments stuffed into that post, which the goose opted to ignore this time around—the actual mod post, not the comments. But the comments were different; they were all screened and only a mod could read them. This time, the goose still had its modly powers.

This time, the comments were two keystrokes away from being a capslock screaming match a la the early 2000s.

> **santiago:** Full offense but I’m not going to write someone’s slice-of-life curtain fic rarepair thing. I didn’t even sign up for these fandoms and this is what I get stuck with? Honestly, I’d write for any fandom so long as there’s some ABO, but this? I can’t do this.
> 
> **mambo_jambo:** All my recipient wants is fluff and more fluff. I can’t. I’m going to die of marshmallows and Starbucks syrups if I have to think about this for too long. Everything I write is in their DNWs. I’m already defaulting.
> 
> **shipliekfedex:** Gen fic???? IN MY HOUSE???? I NEED SHIPS TO BE FREE I DON’T EVEN KNOW THESE FANDOMS WHAT IS THIS
> 
> **boouhore:** My assignment is kink PWP. The DNWs are “anything that isn’t kinky PWP.” Fullstop. WTF NO.
> 
> **faxthecat:** So unlike everyone else, I seem to be the only one who was matched with fandoms and characters I agreed to… but unlike everyone else, but recipient’s letter is giving War and Peace a run for its money. Ain’t nobody got time for that. I’ll just default and write a treat for someone, I guess.

Then the comments disappeared.

_Honk honk?_

The goose left the post. From the outside, what was once hundreds of comments was now zero. Weird. Lifting its gaze, the goose spotted yet another mod post.

> I believe we have found the source of our problems. Both Dreamwidth and AO3 have been infected by a virus called g00s3.exe. It’s causing multiple problems, such as assignments being swapped, fandoms appearing where they shouldn’t be, and spamming posts with nothing but _honk_. We have sent our complaints to IT and can only hope for the best. Until then, security has buckled down. Yuletide is still on, everyone. We apologize for all the inconvenience and promise things will be smoother from here on out.

There was more, but the goose didn’t bother to check—though it did notice the image of a goose rendered in pixels with a massive red X through it. Quite classy. Anyhow, the goose also checked its to-do list, considering it hadn’t glanced at it since the last completed task.

And just like when the goose was in the village, a new task appeared.

  * ~~Become a Yuletide mod~~
  * ~~Mix up the tag set~~
  * ~~Post a mod announcement~~
  * ~~Bloat a fandom~~ ~~’s fanfic numbers~~
  * ~~Swap assignments~~
  * Create a Yuletide fic
  * Delete the Yuletide 2019 collection



This was the part where the heavens parted and angels sang while divine light outlined the final mission. This was the part where all the goose’s hard work would pay off.

This was the part where the goose had no other option but wait.

It sat there, watching yuletide_admin update now and then with progress on the so-called virus and approaching deadlines. Sometimes the goose peeked at AO3, where the numbers in the Yuletide 2019 collection continued to crawl up. Hitting triple digits was impressive, but quadruple digits? That was quite the prize to run off with. The goose wiggled its tail in anticipation.

Soon. Clearly not soon enough, but _soon_. The goose had to strike when the time was right. And that time was apparently 3:55 am EST on December 25th, 2019.

It was quiet on AO3. The cursors were busy elsewhere—flipping through 300k+ enemies to lovers cafe au slow burns, apparently—and the goose had to act _now_. It waddled into position, retracing its path to the main collection for 2019. Countless last-minute works poured in and overflowed into something called a Madness collection. Seriously who came up with these names? Well, the goose couldn’t just get rid of one if the other was producing numbers, too. Navigating the collection’s hierarchy, the goose came to the parent collection—Yuletide.

The goose tested the top corner of the page. Yup, this was quite the opposite of light. And with fifty subcollections? This was going to take some elbow grease to make it work. Or like… beak grease. Yeah, that’s a thing.

Which coincidentally worked; the goose was a pro at pecking dense objects built to ward it away from a prized item. The endless bells were proof the goose could take what it wanted and run off without a care. So it pecked at the edges of the site, gradually cracking the foundations of code cementing it into place. 3:55 am became 3:56, then 3:57. The goose was almost done. Just a little bit more—

Resistance tugged on the other end. The goose looked up.

_Honk?_

What was this? A cursor?! Did that one binge read all the multichapter fics already?!

It positioned the collection back into place like a puzzle piece, but the goose wasn’t having any of that. The goose yanked at a corner, determined to have its way. So was the cursor.

Time ticked by. The goose made little progress. If it had those aforementioned eyebrows, the goose would be looking pretty worried right about now.

Then it stopped. The goose released the collection. The cursor slowly brought it back, trying its best to align the edges for it to fall back into place seamlessly.

The goose circled around while the cursor did so. The cursor realigned once, then twice. Almost there.

_Honk honk honk honk honk honk honk honk honk!_

The cursor tripped and stumbled across the page, which is odd, because how does that even work, _but you_ _’re the one reading an Untitled Goose Game fic_. Speaking of which, the goose booked it to a corner of the collection. 3:59 am on the dot, like a bad action movie with explosions and stuff. The goose managed to drag that mammoth collection off the page without the cursor noticing. Teetering on the edge, the goose swung around, almost wobbled off while holding the collection out.

And then the goose released it.

Like everything else it dropped in this odd, white nothingness, the collection plummeted. Where exactly it went, who knew, but it was gone. Vanished from the face of the Internet, never to be reclaimed again.

Once more the to-do list dropped into view:

  * ~~Become a Yuletide mod~~
  * ~~Mix up the tag set~~
  * ~~Post a mod announcement~~
  * ~~Bloat a fandom~~ ~~’s fanfic numbers~~
  * ~~Swap assignments~~
  * Create a Yuletide fic
  * ~~Delete the Yuletide 2019 collection~~



The goose marched in place and spread its wings.

_Honk honk honk!_

Leaving AO3, the goose waddled back to Dreamwidth. It ignored the outraged pouring through yuletide_admin, countless people demanding to know not only where their gifts were, but where their assignments they poured their hearts into disappeared to. Nope, the goose paid no attention to that mess and waddled down until it found the virus post. It grabbed the lovely pixel rendition of clearly itself and dragged it along for the ride.

But where exactly did said ride go to? That was an interesting question. The hole in AO3 revealed zeros and ones, which the goose traveled through. From there, it popped onto another location with _yet another white background_. As much as it wanted to honk in frustration, it didn’t want to release its beautiful portrait. Tolerating the white space, the goose scouted the new location it unlocked, a new place to wreak havoc.

A massive banner similar to Dreamwidth’s sat on top, adorned with a silhouette of a bluebird. The goose did drop its portrait briefly to inspect this odd bird.

_Honk?_

Nothing.

_Honk honk honk?!_

Nope. Hardcore silent treatment with this one.

The goose stared at this bird and retrieved its portrait once more. It waddled on by, ignoring the _Twitter_ sign, ignoring the colossal stream of nonstop posts, and followed the new set of instructions dictated by the to-do list:

  * Create a Twitter account



First order of business—after assigning that portrait as its profile icon—was figuring out if there was a dark mode option or not.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Yuletide! I hope you enjoyed this silly fic. The goose is hard to say no to. Also, all DW usernames were created with a generator for the sake of this fic, so if someone actually has those usernames, it's pure coinci—
> 
> Wait, did you hear that?
> 
> I swore I just—
> 
> *insert garbled sounds, ringing bells, and honking here*
> 
> *a goose waddles its way into view and looks curiously at you*
> 
> _Honk!_


End file.
